London -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is `` not a fit person '' to run a major international company , British lawmakers investigating phone hacking at his tabloid News of the World reported Tuesday .

The ruling could prompt British regulators to force him to sell his controlling stake in British Sky Broadcasting , a significant part of his media empire .

The damning report accused Murdoch and his son James of showing `` willful blindness '' to phone hacking at News of the World , and said the newspaper `` deliberately tried to thwart the police investigation '' into the illegal activity .

The paper 's publisher , News Corp. subsidiary News International , `` wished to buy silence in this affair and pay to make the problem go away , '' the Parliament 's Culture , Media and Sport Committee found .

Ofcom , the British media regulator that could force Murdoch out of BSkyB , said it was `` reading with interest '' the report from Parliament .

The agency noted that it `` has a duty under the Broadcasting Acts of 1990 and 1996 to be satisfied that any person holding a broadcasting license is , and remains , fit and proper to do so . ''

News Corp. , which Rupert Murdoch leads as chairman and chief executive , accepted responsibility for some failings Tuesday but pushed back against some of the more critical remarks made by lawmakers .

`` Hard truths have emerged from the Select Committee Report : that there was serious wrongdoing at the News of the World ; that our response to the wrongdoing was too slow and too defensive ; and that some of our employees misled the Select Committee in 2009 , '' it said in a statement .

However , remarks made by some lawmakers after the report was issued on Tuesday were `` unjustified and highly partisan , '' it said .

News Corp. said it had already acted on many of the failings highlighted in the report , had brought in new internal controls and is supporting police investigations into alleged wrongdoing .

Allegations of widespread illegal eavesdropping by Murdoch journalists in search of stories have shaken the media baron 's News Corp. empire and the British political establishment , up to and including Prime Minister David Cameron .

Police have arrested dozens of people as part of investigations into phone hacking , e-mail hacking and police bribery , while two parliamentary committees and an independent inquiry led by Lord Justice Brian Leveson are probing the scandal .

Testifying last week before the Leveson Inquiry , Rupert Murdoch admitted that there had been a `` cover-up '' of phone hacking at News of the World , which ceased publication last July .

But Murdoch , who owns the Sun and the Times in London , as well as controlling The Wall Street Journal , New York Post and Fox News , said his News Corp. had been a victim of the cover-up , not the perpetrator .

`` Someone took charge of a cover-up , which we were victim to and I regret , '' he said Thursday at the Leveson Inquiry .

He apologized for not having paid more attention to the scandal , which he called `` a serious blot on my reputation . ''

Tuesday 's report by the Culture , Media and Sport Committee is based , in part , on earlier testimony by Rupert and James Murdoch .

John Whittingdale , the chairman of the committee , said Tuesday that , while there is `` no definitive evidence to prove whether or not James Murdoch was aware of ... evidence which indicated that phone hacking was widespread , the committee was nevertheless astonished that he did not seek to see the evidence . ''

Tom Watson , the Labour lawmaker who has long been one of the fiercest critics of Murdoch , was blistering in a news conference announcing the parliamentary findings .

`` These people corrupted our country , '' he said . `` They have brought shame on our police force and our Parliament . They lied and cheated -- blackmailed and bullied and we should all be ashamed when we think how we cowered before them for so long . ''

But Louise Mensch , a Conservative member of Parliament who is on the committee with Whittingdale and Watson , said the report had gone too far .

She was one of the four Conservative MPs who dissented from the amendment to the report finding that Murdoch was not a fit person to run a company .

She called the amendment `` faintly ridiculous , '' given Murdoch 's decades in the business , and accused the Labour members of the committee of pushing through a `` nakedly political '' statement .

`` The amendments were so far out of left field they made a mockery of the whole thing , '' she said .

The section declaring Murdoch `` not fit '' passed by a vote of 6 to 4 , with support from Labour and Liberal Democrat lawmakers , over opposition from Conservatives . Committee chairman Whittingdale , a Conservative , did not vote .

The report did not accuse either Murdoch of misleading Parliament , but said three of their underlings had done so in testimony to the committee .

Longtime Murdoch right-hand man Les Hinton was criticized , as were Colin Myler , the last editor of News of the World , and Tom Crone , who was the paper 's lawyer for decades .

Myler and Crone `` gave repeated assurances that there was no evidence that any further News of the World employee , beyond Clive Goodman , had been involved in phone-hacking , '' the report says . `` This was not true and , as further evidence disclosed to us by the newspaper 's solicitors Farrer & Co now shows , they would have known this was untrue when they made those statements . Both Tom Crone and Colin Myler deliberately avoided disclosing crucial information to the Committee and , when asked to do , answered questions falsely . ''

Mensch noted that Myler , the editor of the New York Daily News , `` has misled a select committee of Parliament . I would hope that a little bit of attention would be paid to the unanimous findings of the committee where named individuals misled Parliament . ''

In a statement , Myler said he stood by the evidence that he gave the committee . `` The conclusions of the Committee have , perhaps inevitably , been affected by the fragmented picture which has emerged from the various witnesses over successive appearances and by the constraints within which the Committee had to conduct its procedure , '' he said . `` These issues remain the subject of a police investigation and the Leveson judicial inquiry and I have every confidence that they will establish the truth in the fullness of time . ''

The full House of Commons will have to rule on whether the three committed contempt by misleading the committee , `` and , if so , what punishment should be imposed , '' the report says .

`` It is effectively lying to Parliament , '' Whittingdale said . `` Parliament at the end of the day is the supreme court of the land . It is a very serious matter . ''

BSkyB shares were up slightly in London on the news . Shares in News Corp. , which is traded in New York , closed Tuesday up 2.64 % .

In a statement to News Corp. 's 50,000 employees , Rupert Murdoch said the report `` affords us a unique opportunity to reflect upon the mistakes we have made and further the course we have already completed to correct them . ''

He said that it was difficult for him to read many of its findings , `` but we have done the most difficult part , which has been to take a long , hard and honest look at our past mistakes . ''

He continued , `` We certainly should have acted more quickly and aggressively to uncover wrongdoing . We deeply regret what took place and have taken our share of responsibility for not rectifying the situation sooner . ''

He said News Corp. officials `` have gone beyond what law enforcement authorities have asked of us , to ensure not only that we are in compliance with the law , but that we adhere to the highest ethical standards . ''

Rupert Murdoch said last week that if he had known the depth of the problem in 2007 , when a private investigator and a Murdoch journalist were sent to prison for phone hacking , he `` would have torn the place apart and we would n't be here today . ''

But he also suggested last week that key parts of the scandal have been overblown .

`` The hacking scandal was not a great national thing until the Milly Dowler disclosure , half of which has been somewhat disowned by the police , '' Murdoch said .

He was referring to the revelation that people working for him had hacked into the voice mail of a missing 13-year-old who later turned out to have been murdered .

The Guardian newspaper originally reported that the hackers had also deleted some of the voice mails left for the girl , leading to false hopes that she was still alive and deleting them herself . In fact , the messages may have expired automatically .

Murdoch was also grilled over his media empire 's back-channel lobbying of the British government and said he learned of the existence of one of the key lobbyists only `` a few months ago . ''

He said he was `` surprised '' by the extent of the contact by the employee , Fred Michel , with the British government as it considered a bid by News Corp. to take full ownership of British Sky Broadcasting .

That bid collapsed because of the phone-hacking scandal .

The scandal has also forced News Corp. to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation to the victims of phone hacking .

Murdoch and his son James have been hammered over the past year about what they knew about phone hacking by people working for them .

They have always denied knowing about the scale of the practice , which police say could have affected thousands of people , ranging from celebrities and politicians to crime victims and war veterans .

CNN 's Alex Mohacs , Alexander Felton Erin McLaughlin , Elaine Ly and Claudia Rebaza contributed to this report .

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NEW : `` We deeply regret what took place , '' Rupert Murdoch says

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British media regulators are studying the findings `` with interest ''

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Lawmakers : Murdoch not fit `` to exercise the stewardship of a major international company ''

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News International `` wished to buy silence '' over phone hacking , the report says